Page 72 of The Witch and His Crow

For now.

‘No, it’s not,’ I replied, standing to survey the room. Groups of witches stood around, equally displaced from the Trial. I watched the back of a white-haired man leave the room and knew it was Salem. He was running before I had the chance to act. He knew I’d figured him out. But it was actually another witch I searched for, not Salem.

That was when the clapping began.

Jaz watched us from across the room, a smug grin plastered across her face. ‘Well done, you passed. All of you.’

I took a step forwards, delighting in the rising wave of my Gift. But a body stepped in front of me, a hand placed on my chest.

Romy stood in my way, her lips curled in a snarl. There was something about the danger in her eyes that froze me. Andwhen she spoke, it was as if the words were knives. ‘She’s mine, Hector.’

I held Romy’s furious gaze, nodding as I knew that she’d deal out punishment as she deemed fit. ‘Make her pay, for Eleanor.’

‘Oh,’ Romy’s eyes brightened as the ruby circlet spun around her iris. ‘I intend too.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

It had been two nights since The Enduring had ended, and whenever I slept, I dreamt of Eleanor. Every detail of her death played clearly in my mind, beside one thing. She’d called for someone, a name I couldn’t remember. When she brought down the shield around her village, I’d heard it. But no matter how hard I tried to repeat it, conjure it, the letters and vowels fell away from me.

I had asked Arwyn, but he had looked strangely at me, shaking his head, telling me he didn’t hear it. Somehow, I didn’t believe him.

Our days had all been much of the same. I woke before Romy and Arwyn, sat myself beside the window of our room and looked out over the mist-coated expanse of the castle’s grounds. Eleanor’s grimoire was open on my lap, the crisp pages as delicate to the touch as a moth’s wing. The page I’d stopped reading was about runes and their respective intentions. My comprehension of the information was limited. I found that it was like reading a different language, which I supposed was exactly the case. This kind of magic, at least, was foreign to me. But I didn’t stop searching—searching for a way to break open the shield around the castle and let Caym in, searching for ananswer to what Eleanor had done that sealed up the old magic and granted witches access to Gifts.

There were so many questions, and yet the more I read from the grimoire, expecting answers, all I got were more fucking questions.

Romy was fast sleep in the four-poster bed, her snores audible from the mound of pillows that suffocated her. It was a miracle she’d hear anything from within the pile of comfort. Arwyn was sleeping too, sitting upright in the reading chair which currently kept our door barricaded shut. I had meant to wake him three hours ago so he could take over the watch shift. But there had been something so peaceful about him that stopped me from disturbing him. The usual hard lines across his face had smoothed and the tension in his posture had eased.

In the time since we’d returned from the Enduring, three more witches had died. Last time I’d checked the chalkboard, there was twenty names written on it. So many had died, and I didn’t even feel unwell at the thought.

More would die too. Romy and Arwyn, perhaps.

And there was still the issue of the Witch Hunter amongst the remaining contenders. Salem had not been seen since we returned, and hell knows I tried searching for him. If he didn’t want to kill us, witches like Jaz did.

We left the room, together and never alone. Food and water, supplies, everything we required, we brought back to our room and locked ourselves away. We’d taken turns washing in the communal showers, two standing guard outside the door. It was our daily routine, one we all had fallen into with ease.

I was worried about Romy. She had kept comments about her time during the Trial to a minimum. She was careful with the information she gave, proving she had something to hide. All I knew was she’d been with Jaz until that went to shit and Jaz sold Romy out to a passing group of Witch Hunters. The rest Iwas aware of. But something else had happenedI could see it in the troubled glint in Romy’s eyes. In time she would tell me, or perhaps not. Either way, I wasn’t in a position to pry. There were details of my experience in the Trial which I’d kept to myself.

Namely our new coven member, Arwyn, who was reluctant to leave my side since we returned.

I fought a yawn as I continued my read-through of Eleanor’s grimoire. The handwriting changed the further through the book I got. It was obvious the book had been touched by many a Letcombe witch, Eleanor being the last. I felt it was my job to keep her name alive, since we’d been the ones to bring death to her door.

My fingers ran over the grooves quill had made when the witch had written in the Book of Shadows. One page spoke of ‘calling the four quarters,’ whereas the next would be a full insight into the fauna and herbs used to concoct a potent hex. I flipped between drawings of the Wheel of the Year, which showcased the eight sabbats important to the craft. Next came a depiction of the different moon phases and their meanings. Candle magic, astrology guides and a description of the art of scrying all came in quick succession. I didn’t know what, precisely, I was looking for, but my gut told me to keep going. I recognised the tug of my intuition, so I continued to search through the sun-yellowed pages until my heart screamed at me to stop.

‘Demonology,’ I whispered aloud, unable to stop myself. Someone had scrawled the name atop the page in a rush. Ink splotches signalled the writer hadn’t taken the time to tap their quill before writing.

A shiver of discomfort rolled over me. My skin almost felt sticky to the touch, as though the word I read had the power to make my body recoil from it. In the centre of the page, someone had drawn the head of a goat. It had curling horns that belongedon the head of a minotaur from Greek history, not some lowly farm animal. It was familiar to me, but I couldn’t grasp why. Like there was something in my mind stopping me, a locked door, preventing me from making sense of why my body reacted to the image. Around it, smaller birds had been drawn, the smudges of ink looking more like shadows. The same creatures we had seen when the Enduring began. The demons Eleanor spoke of keeping out of her village.

There was a paragraph of writing beneath which I read.

‘…they came on the wind, whispering secrets of power unlike any other. Access to magic’s far stronger than what our deity provides. They long to ruin, corrupt and control. Born from the hellfire, they will not stop. Using stones soaked beneath both Hekate’s sun and moon, erect around a blessed space and cover with the runes of protection for shield, authority and home. This repels unwanted magic, or keeps it contained, dependant on the positioning of the rune-marks. Only the witch who cast the circle can be the witch to break it. Face outwards to keep the creatures away, or inward to keep them trapped.’

I was so deep in the writing that I didn’t notice the presence until the shadow leaned over me. ‘I don’t remember you visiting the library.’

I snapped the book shut, knowing it was too late to conceal it from Arwyn. There was no hiding the etched pentagram on the cover. So I didn’t bother to try and hide it. ‘That’s because I didn’t.’

Arwyn nudged my feet with his hands, beckoning for me to move. ‘May I join you?’

I could’ve declined, but something in me wanted his company. Even the short time we’d spent alone, I’d grown comfortable with him by my side. Like Arwyn had slipped into the void Caym had left.

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